Fox News has given viewers a preview of its "news deck", a shiny technologic wonder the likes of which hasn't been seen on cable news since the CNN holograms of yore.

On Monday, host Shepard Smith unveiled Fox News's new information hub by talking to viewers about how important it is to keep up with technology. The best way to do that, apparently, is with what the Fox News calls "big area touchscreens" (Bats) – 55in screens that dwarf every human in the room.

Along with the Bats come various new tools that Fox hopes will become the new norm in TV news. These include a 38ft video wall, operatable with a remote control, and other tools to aid verification. The network is vague about what hardware is behind the Godzilla-sized screens, but early bets seem to suggest Microsoft’s Perceptive Pixel is running on Windows 8.

A lot of the buzz about Bats started with this tweet from Mashable’s Seth Fiegerman: